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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25009753">Unlucky at Gambling, Unlucky at Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance'>FrenchTwistResistance</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I’ve Always Been Crazy But It’s Kept Me from Going Insane [20]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, I just want caos to be a sitcom where hot middle-aged ladies kiss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:33:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,198</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25009753</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hilda has an uncomfortable but necessary conversation with Mary Wardwell.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hilda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I’ve Always Been Crazy But It’s Kept Me from Going Insane [20]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unlucky at Gambling, Unlucky at Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re in a back corner booth in the hotel bar. Hilda and Miss Kingston are sitting together across from Mary, who is skimming her fingertips against the edge of her casino cash out voucher. They don’t have drinks yet, and they haven’t started talking yet. </p><p>Hilda had anticipated having to convince Mary to follow her to a second location, had brainstormed for how to deescalate and defuse. But all she’d had to say was, “Can we talk somewhere without so much dinging?” And Mary had said, “If you buy me a drink. Or maybe a half dozen drinks.”</p><p>So here they are. </p><p>Hilda unconsciously mirrors Mary’s anxious tic with a no-cal sweetener packet. Kingston has her legs crossed and is angled away from them, scanning the rest of the room, looking casual and disinterested. But Hilda, as she’s steeling herself and preparing herself, accidentally catches a few waves from Kingston’s brain—just a touch of apprehension and a lot of curiosity. Maybe it hadn’t been a great idea to drag her into this. But she hadn’t trusted herself to make the drive alone without spiraling and then also be as collected and discreet as the situation required when she arrived. A neutral third party had seemed like an asset at the outset but could very easily become a liability depending on how far Kingston was willing to go to satisfy that curiosity. She’s counting mostly on Kingston’s perfect manners to preclude too much snooping.</p><p>“Charlotte,” Hilda says. Kingston snaps to attention as if she’d been waiting for roll call in an army barracks and she is particularly proud of the way she’d pressed her uniform that morning. Hilda doesn’t know how to take that alacrity. Is it because Hilda’s called her by her given name only a handful of times? Is it because she’s excited about how the rest of the day will unfold? Is it because she’s tired of the inaction? Is it because they’re still a little bit attracted to each other? Hilda shoves the entirety of that quandary aside and says, “Would you be a dear and go order at the bar for us?” </p><p>Hilda watches Mary’s jaw clench and Kingston’s back straighten. But Kingston says, ever so polite,</p><p>“Of course. What are y’all drinking?” </p><p>Hilda starts rummaging around in her purse for her debit card so she doesn’t have to look at either of them for a second, and somehow she says absently,</p><p>“A Scarlett O’Hara. And make it a double.” </p><p>When she hands the card to Kingston and their eyes meet, Kingston’s brow is furrowed. Hilda can feel her hurt, can feel that she thinks she’s making fun of her. She opens her mouth to ameliorate, but Mary’s saying acidly,</p><p>“I’ve never had one, but you usually have such impeccable taste. I’ll have the same.” </p><p>Kingston squares her beautiful shoulders, nods curtly, plasters on a very obviously fake smile, says,</p><p>“Back in two shakes.” She exits the booth.</p><p>Mary slides her voucher to the side and folds her hands on the table, looks Hilda straight in the eye. She says in a confidentially low pitch and volume,</p><p>“I know you’ve brought Xena Warrior Princess with you as a buffer, and I don’t appreciate it.” Hilda looks down at the sweetener packet, crunches it between her thumb and forefinger, says,</p><p>“I could see why you wouldn’t.” She looks up at Mary. “Everyone at Baxter High is worried about you. I thought it’d be best to bring a representative.” Mary cocks her head in question, and Hilda continues, “Of course, I’ve been worried about you for a while but didn’t know how to approach you. And now, well, I suppose I couldn’t not approach you.”</p><p>Mary barks a bitter laugh.</p><p>“How magnanimous of you,” Mary says.</p><p>“Miss Wardwell, I do truly care about your well-being. It’s just all very complicated and difficult to explain and—”</p><p>“Oh I’m sure!” Mary pounds a fist onto the table. “What exactly did I witness out back of that cockfight? Who and what is that woman who looks exactly like me? Why was your sister so angry?” Her voice is rising incrementally with each question, and her hands are now flat on the table, pressing down forcefully. Hilda watches the veins in her hands bulge and quiver. “What were you two really doing in my shed that night? What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on? What is all this nonsense? Some covert government experiment? Aliens?” </p><p>Hilda looks over to the bar. Charlotte Kingston is sitting on a stool with three drinks at her elbow as she’s watching Mary hiss at her. She hopes Kingston’s not adept at lip reading, but she doesn’t consider herself lucky enough for that. She knows Mary deserves a real explanation, and she suspects Kingston will figure out enough to start asking the same kinds of questions. This has been a mess from the start, but it’s turning into a clusterfuck, and she’s got only herself to blame. If she were able to say no none of this would’ve happened and she wouldn’t currently be obligated to reveal the intricacies of witch culture and details about circumvented apocalypses to either of these mortal women who would be better off not knowing. But as it stands, as it has played out so far, at the very least Mary Wardwell deserves honesty and transparency.</p><p>“Do you want the long version or the short version?” Hilda says.</p><p>“I want the truth,” Mary says.</p><p>Kingston returns to the table at this juncture. She sets the drinks down, sidles into the booth. She takes a generous swig of her own drink—which looks suspiciously also like a Scarlett O’Hara—and then she says,</p><p>“I’m not going to pretend I don’t know you two have a lot you need to sort out, and I’m not going to pretend I’m not burning up wondering what all this is about, but I am going to give you some privacy. So, Miss Wardwell, do you have any slot machine recommendations?” Mary narrows her eyes, says,</p><p>“You don’t play the table games?”</p><p>“Casinos use too many decks. I can’t count the cards and figure the probabilities, so it’s no fun for me. I’d rather just play something bright and stupid and loud.” Hilda smiles at that, and Kingston smiles back at her. Mary rolls her eyes but gives her directions to the brightest, stupidest, and loudest machines.</p><p>xxx</p><p>Miss Kingston is probably at Sharknado or Wonder Woman, and Mary has opted for the long version.</p><p>They’re both sufficiently inebriated to be candid and a little freer but not sloppy. Hilda has elucidated in the most linear, logical way that she can. </p><p>Mary says,</p><p>“You mean to tell me I was possessed by a demon during all that time I have little memory of and that that demon was— using my body to do all sorts of things, including but not limited to you? And all I get out of it is confusion and abstract yearning and deja vu? She couldn’t have at least left me with either total amnesia that I could’ve worked through with a therapist or vivid erotic dreams that I could’ve easily dismissed?!”</p><p>“I don’t know what to say that might make you feel better about it. Lilith is just a dick and a half, and I should’ve had better judgment. And I should’ve talked to you sooner,” Hilda says.</p><p>“And what exactly am I supposed to do with all this information? That you’re all witches? That you know what I look like naked? That for a significant amount of time there was illegal pot growing on my property? And this is just all the stuff you know about! What else was Lilith getting up to in my body when she wasn’t messing around with you? Do I now have a string of illicit lovers that will get bored and drunk and suddenly remember our fling some 2am and be texting me ‘You up…’? Am I on a bunch of wanted lists for stealing trashy detritus from parking lots in different counties?”</p><p>“Those are all very good questions that I don’t have any answers to, and Lilith isn’t speaking to me right now, so we can’t ask her.”</p><p>“And even if we could, what are the odds she would be honest with either of us?”</p><p>“Hmm. Probably not great odds.” Mary laughs, says,</p><p>“You know any witch lawyers? Maybe I could sue for damages.”</p><p>“Oh, love, I don’t think your case would get very far. Usually this sort of thing leaves the mortal dead, so a witch judge would probably rule that you have your life and that’s more than adequate compensation. Most witches are also dicks, unfortunately.” Mary sighs and goes to take a drink, but finds her glass empty. She takes Hilda’s half-full one and takes a long draft, says,</p><p>“Well, I guess there’s no use dwelling on it, then. I mean, of course, I’m still upset and feeling absolutely violated and insane, but I suppose I’ll have to get over it or at least get used to feeling absolutely violated and insane.” She finishes Hilda’s drink, stares at the glass as she drags her finger around the rim. Hilda shudders. What other way would there be to feel about having been possessed than upset, violated, and insane? Hilda, for her part, feels guilty and ashamed and only slightly insane. Hilda says,</p><p>“I’d like to apologize for my role in making you feel that way. If I’d known, I never would have—”</p><p>Mary’s eyes shoot up to meet hers.</p><p>“Please don’t. Either you’re an unreliable narrator or you’re the least dickish witch, and whichever is the case, I’d rather close, lock, and deadbolt the door on that part of the conversation for now.”</p><p>“Yes, sorry. I understand,” Hilda says.</p><p>They’re silent for a moment, and then Mary says,</p><p>“There is another thing I’m wondering about, though.” She pauses, and when she starts up again it’s slow and thoughtful, as if she’s speaking a foreign language and wants to make sure she’s choosing the correct vocabulary: “Lilith returned to Hell to be its new ruler. And not too long after, she contacted you, and you two have been having a secret affair ever since. Your version of events and your sister’s reaction to seeing you together at the cockfight suggest that you’re the only one to have known Lilith has been active in this realm since her departure from my body. But. After that play you were in, I came to your house, and Sabrina was so rude and weird to me. She’s always so polite and sweet in class. But she was talking to me as though I were someone else. As though I were someone with whom she shared a secret. Or a crime. As though we were co-conspirators.”</p><p>Hilda remembers that afternoon, remembers Sabrina’s strangeness. Her neck prickles with goosebumps. Perhaps Mary is onto something. She says,</p><p>“You sound as though you have a theory, Miss Wardwell.”</p><p>“I’m not sure I’d call it a theory so much as a supposition. However. There’s also the matter of the previously missing little girl whose mother turned up in my office to thank me for having found and rescued her daughter. If she’d cited the date of the incident as having occurred during my blank period, I wouldn’t have flinched. But my alleged heroism was more recent than that, firmly within when I should’ve been cognizant of such a thing. In fact, the exact hour she claimed I’d liberated her daughter from a kidnapper’s walk-in freezer, I have concrete proof via long-distance bills that I was at that moment on the phone with my ex-wife arguing about what we should do about her recently deceased uncle’s inheritance because he’d written his will not knowing that we’d divorced.”</p><p>Mary’s gaze cuts into her. Hilda says,</p><p>“I need another drink.”</p><p>“So do I,” Mary says. “But don’t you dare use that as an excuse not to engage with me. There’s something awry here, and you very well know it.”</p><p>Hilda’s thoughts flit to Lilith’s discomfort with and disdain for Hell, Lilith’s philosophizing about the feral horses, Lilith’s Queen Bitch attitude until she’d been suddenly arrested by something none of them could see and her subsequent hasty exit out back of the cock fight. Hilda says,</p><p>“I believe you, and I do know something’s awry. But I can’t reasonably address the issue without consulting with Zelda first.”</p><p>Mary laughs, says,</p><p>“You refresh our drinks, and I’ll locate Miss Kingston.”</p><p>xxx</p><p>Miss Kingston is sprawled out in front of some bright, stupid, loud Aladdin game. She’s on a faux leather stool with her long legs stretched out and propped up. She’s sipping at the straw of a soft drink in a styrofoam cup. She’s leisurely hitting the “repeat bet” button and watching as the high-def screen oscillates with each iteration. It’s an eighty-cent bet, and she is languid.</p><p>“Charlotte,” Hilda says. “Would you mind driving us home?” Hilda knows she’s asking a lot. She feels bad about it, but she feels worse about Mary Wardwell.</p><p>“I don’t mind at all,” Kingston says.</p>
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